Tuesday, 5 March 2019

The Science of Psychology

What is Psychology?

- Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

• Behavior includes all outward or overt actions and reactions (i.e. talking,
expressions, movement, etc.)

• Mental processes refer to all the internal, covert activity of our minds (i.e.
thinking, feeling, and remembering)

- The goals of psychology are description, explanation, prediction, and control.*

1. Description - involves observing behavior and noting everything about it

2. Explanation - finding a tentative explanation; goal of description is to provide

the observations and the goal of explanation helps to build the theory

• Theory is a general explanation of a set observations or facts

3. Prediction - “When will it happen again?” or what will happen in the future

4. Control - the focus is to change a behavior from an undesirable one to a

desirable one

*not all psychologists will focus on all four goals

History of Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt

• Father of Psychology

• Leipzig, Germany (1879)

• believed that consciousness, the state of being aware of external events, could
be broken into thoughts, experiences, emotions, and other basic elements

• Objective Introspection - the process of objectively examining and measuring

one’s own thoughts and mental activities (Example: describing what you feel as a
result of having a rock in your hand)

Edward Titchener

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• Structuralism - focus on the structure of the mind

• believed that every experience could be broken down into its individual emotions
and sensations; believed that objective introspection could be used on thoughts
as well as physical sensations (Example: What is blue? There are blue things like
the sky. Blue is calm, restful, etc.)

• Margaret F. Washburn (student) published The Animal Mind

William James

• interested in the importance of consciousness to everyday life rather than just

analysis (believed that study of consciousness was not yet possible)

• Functionalism - how the mind allows people to function in the real world (i.e. how
people work, play, adapt to their surroundings)

• heavily influenced by ideas of natural selection (Example: Avoiding the eyes of

others in an elevator as a way of avoiding what might seem like a challenge to
another person)

• Mary Whiton Calkins (student) was the first female president of the American
Psychological Association

• Francis Cecil Sumner became the father of African American psychology

• Kenneth and Mamie Clark studied negative effects of school segregation of

African American children

• George Sanchez focused on cultural biases

Max Wertheimer

• believed that psychological events such as perceiving and sensing could not be
broken down into any smaller elements and still be understood (The whole is
greater than the sum of its parts)

- Perceiving: becoming aware of something through the senses

- Sensing: seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.

• Gestalt* Psychology - studying whole patterns rather than small pieces of them

*Gestalt means “an organised whole” or “configuration”

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• Cognitive Psychology - a field focusing on perception, learning, memory, thought
processes, and problem solving (Gestalt ideas are part of this)

Sigmund Freud

• proposed that there is an unconscious mind into which we push, or repress, all of
our threatening urges and desires; these repressed urges, in trying to surface,
created the nervous disorders in his patients

• stressed on the important of early childhood experiences

• Psychoanalysis - theory and therapy based on Freud’s ideas

• Psychotherapy - psychological professional helps a person gain insight into and

change his or her behavior

Ivan Pavlov

• showed that reflex (involuntary reaction) could be caused to occur in response to a

formerly unrelated stimulus

• Conditioning - Example: Dogs would salivate at the sound of a metronome before

food was presented after constant repetition

John B. Watson

• Behaviorism - ignore consciousness and focus only on observable behavior

• Behavior is learned; All behavior was a result of a stimulus-response relationship

• believed that phobias are learned through the process of conditioning (Example:
Baby scared of rat by making a scary noise every time he saw the rat; eventually
cries after just seeing the rat)

• Mary Cover Jones tried counterconditioning (taught a child to be afraid of a

rabbit but reversed the action)

Modern Perspectives in Psychology

Psychodynamic Perspective - focuses on the role of the unconscious mind and its
influence over conscious behavior and on early childhood experiences, with less
emphasis on sexual motivations and more on sense of self, social, and interpersonal
relationships, and the discovery of other motivations behind behavior

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Behavioral Perspective - B.F. Skinner

• Operant Conditioning - aimed to explain how voluntary behavior is learned

Humanistic Perspective - often called “third force”; held the view that people had free
will, freedom to choose their own destiny, and strive for self-actualization

Cognitive Perspective - focuses on memory, intelligence, perception, thought

processes, problem solving, language, and learning (brain software not hardware)

Sociocultural Perspective - focuses on the behavior of individuals as the result of the

presence (real or imagined) of other individuals, as part of groups/a larger culture

• combines social psychology (study of groups, social roles, relationships) and

cultural psychology (study of cultural norms, values, and expectations)

Biopsychological Perspective - human and animal behavior as a direct result of

events in the body

Evolutionary Perspective - focuses on the biological bases for universal mental

characteristics that all humans share (i.e. why we lie, how attractiveness influences
male selection, etc.)

• Example: Disliking bitter food as a result of early humans avoiding bitter plants
(poisonous plants)

Psychological Professionals and Areas of Specialization

*A psychologist has no medical training but has a doctorate degree

- A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of

psychological disorders

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- Psychiatric social worker focus more on environmental conditions that have an
impact on mental disorders, such as poverty

- Basic research (gaining scientific knowledge) vs. Applied research (answering real-
world, practical problems)

The Scientific Methodology

A. Scientific Method

1. Perceiving the Question - What is happening?

2. Forming a Hypothesis - tentative answer to question

3. Testing the Hypothesis

4. Drawing Conclusions

5. Report Results

B. Research Methods: Descriptive

Naturalistic Observation: observe behavior in subjects’ normal environment;

disadvantages include observer bias (recognizing only things that support
preconceived expectation) and that naturalistic setting is unique and might not hold
true in other environments

• Observer effect - acting differently when watched

• Participant observation - researchers become participants

- Laboratory Observation: advantages include control

- Case Study: one individual is studied in great detail

- Surveys
C. Research Methods: Correlational

Correlation - measure of the relationship between two or more variables

Correlation Coefficient - represents direction of the relationship and its strength

Experiments - only method that allow researchers to determine cause of a behavior

• experimental group - exposed to independent variable

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• control group - gets no treatment or treatment that should have no effect

Experimental Hazards*

- Placebo Effect: the expectations and biases of participants can influence their
behavior

- Experimenter Effect: behavior of experiementer that causes change in participants’

behavior

*controlled through single-blind (participants are blind to the treatment) or double-blind study (both observer and
participant)

Guidelines for Doing Research with People

1. Rights and well-being of participant must be weighed against the study’s value to
science.

2. Participants must be allowed to make an informed decision about participation.

3. Deception must be justified.

4. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time.

5. Participants must be protected from risks or told explicitly of risks.

6. Investigators must debrief participants.

7. Data must remain confidential.

8. If the study results in undesirable consequences for the participant, the researcher
has the responsibility of correcting this.

Research with Animals

- avoiding any unnecessary pain

- some research questions are too dangerous to answer with humans

- animals are easier to control

- animals have shorter lives therefore easier to study long-term effects

Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking - making reasoned judgements (logical and well thought out)

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Psychology is Alive and Well

The Freud Problem

- the notoriety of Freud has greatly affected public conceptions about psychology
(seen as misleading)

- modern psychology is not obsessed with or largely defined by ideas of Sigmund

Freud

Diversity in Modern Psychology

- Psychology contains not one grand theory, but many different theories, each
covering a limited aspect of behavior

- Cacioppo views psychology as a so-called hub discipline—a science whose

findings have unusually wide implications for other fields.

- lack of coherence of subject matter led to Psychological Science

• The term “sciences” also signals where to look for the unity in the discipline of
psychology—not to its content, but instead to its methods.

Unity in Science

Two things that justify psychology as an independent discipline

1. Psychology studies the full range of human and nonhuman behavior with the
techniques of science

2. Applications that derive from this knowledge are scientifically based

- Psychology’s defining feature is that it is the data-based scientific study of

behavior

Resistors of Scientific Psychology

- purveyors of bogus psychology

- tendency to oppose the expansion of science into areas where unquestioned

authorities and “common sense” have long reigned

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What is Science?

- Science is not defined by subject matter

- Science is also not defined by the use of particular experimental apparatus

- Science is a way of thinking about and observing the universe that leads to a deep
understanding of its workings

Three Interrelated Features that define Science

1. Use of systematic empiricism

2. Production of public knowledge

3. Examination of solvable problems

Systematic Empiricism - the practice of relying on observation; systematic because it

requires structure for it to reveal something about the underlying nature of the world

• observation is necessary but pure, unstructured observation will not lead to

scientific knowledge

Scientific observation - usually theory driven; test different explanations of the nature
of the world (depending on outcome, theories are rejected

Publicly Verifiable Knowledge - scientific knowledge does not exist until it has been
submitted to the scientific community for criticism and empirical testing by others; can
be replicated, criticized, or extended by anyone in the community

Peer review - procedure in which each paper submitted to a research journal is

critiqued by several scientists, who then submit their criticisms to an editor

Empirically Solvable Problems - solvable and specifiable problems; answerable by

currently available empirical techniques

Falsifiability criterion - criterion of testability

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Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology

evolutionary psychology—evolution predisposes the members of a species to engage

in certain responses and at the same time constrains them from performing other
responses

Social Organization, Aggression, and Mating of Three Great Apes

Gorillas

we do not organize and mate like gorillas, chimps, and bonobos because our genes
make it difficult for us to adopt these patterns at a social level

GORILLAS CHIMPS BONOBOS HUMANS

Flexibility
Marriage

• Marriage is socially recognized.

• Marriage has the expectation of generating offspring.
• Marriage is associated with kinship.
• Marriage has relative permanence.
• Marriage involves some degree of sexual exclusivity.
• Marriage involves the transfer of property and/or title.

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The Biological Perspective

Neurons and Nerves: Building the Network

Nervous System - a network of cells that carries information to and from all parts of
the body

Neuroscience - a branch of the life sciences that deals with the structure and
functioning of the brain and the neurons, nerves, and nervous tissue that form the
nervous system

Biological Psychology or Behavioral Neuroscience - branch of neuroscience that

focuses on the biological bases of psychological processes, behavior, and learning,
and it is the primary area associated with the biological perspective in psychology

Neuron - specialized cell in the nervous system that receives and sends messages
within that system. Neurons are one of the messengers of the body, and that means
that they have a very special structure

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Motivation and Emotion

Approaches to Understanding Motivation

Motivation - process by which activities are started, directed, and continued so that
physical or psychological needs or wants are met

- comes from the Latin word mover (to move)

Types of Motivation

1. Extrinsic motivation - a person performs an action because it leads to an outcome

that is separate from the person

2. Intrinsic motivation - a person performs an action because the act itself is fun,
rewarding, challenging, or satisfying in some internal manner

Instincts and The Evolutionary Approach

Instincts - biologically determined and innate patterns of behavior

- William McDougall proposed 18 instincts

- Instinct approaches faded away because, although they could describe human
behavior, they could not explain it

Approaches Based on Needs and Drives

Need - a requirement of some material that is essential to the survival of an organism

- When an organism has a need, it leads to a psychological tension as well as a

physical arousal that motivates the organism to act in order to fulfil the need and
reduce the tension

Drive - the “tension”

A. Drive-Reduction Theory

- proposes just this connection between internal physiological states and outward
behavior

- Primary drives are those that involve survival needs of the body such as hunger
or thirst

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- Acquired (Secondary) drives are those that are learned through experience or
conditioning (i.e. need for money or social approval)

- Primary reinforcers satisfy primary drives and secondary reinforcers satisfy

acquired drives

- Homeostasis is the tendency of the body to maintain a steady state

- Although the theory works to explain actions people take to reduce tension
created by needs, it does not explain human motivation

Different Psychological Needs

A. McClelland’s Theory: Affiliation, Power, and Achievement Needs

• Need for Affiliation (nAff) - people high in this seek to be liked by others and to be
held in high regard to those around them

• Need for Power (nPow) - about having control over other people; want influence
over others and want their ideas to be the ones that are used, regardless of whether
that would lead to success

• Need for Achievement (nAch) - involves a strong desire to success in attaining

goals, not only realistic ones but also challenging ones

B. Carol Dweck’s Self-Theory of Motivation (Personality and nAch)

• According to Dweck, the need for achievement is closely linked to personality

factors, including a person’s view of how self (the beliefs a person hold about his or
her own abilities and relationships with others) can affect the individual’s perception
of the success or failure of his or her actions

• This concept is related to locus of control

1. Internal locus of control - people who assume that they have control over
what happens in their lives

2. External locus of control - those who feel that their lives are controlled by
powerful others, luck, or fate

Arousal Approaches

Stimulus motive - one that appears to be unlearned but causes an increase in

stimulation (i.e. curiosity, playing, exploration)

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- In Arousal Theory, people are said to have optimal (best or ideal) level of tension

Yerkes-Dodson Law - explains relationship between task performance and arousal,

although they formulated the law referring to stimulus intensity not arousal level



sensation seeker - person who needs more arousal that usual

Incentive Approaches

Incentives - things that attract or lure people into action

- behavior is explained in terms of external stimulus and its rewarding properties

- These rewarding properties exist independently of any need or level of arousal

and can cause people to act only upon the incentive

- Theorists today see motivation as a result of both of push of internal needs and
pull of a rewarding stimulus

Humanistic Approaches

A. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - there are several levels of needs that a person
must strive to meet before achieving the highest level of personality fulfilment

self-actualization - people have satisfied lower needs and achieve their full human
potential

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1.Transcendence needs - to find spiritual meaning beyond one’s immediate self

2.Self actualisation needs - find self-fulfilment and realise one’s potential

3.Aesthetic needs - to appreciate symmetry, order, and beauty

4.Cognitive needs - to know, understand, and explore

5.Esteem needs - to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition

6.Belongingness and love needs - to be with others, be accepted and

belong

7.Safety needs - to feel secure and safe; out of danger

8.Physiological needs - satisfy hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc.

peak experiences - times where self-actualisation is achieved even just temporarily

- For Maslow, the process of growth and self actualisation is the striving to make peak
experiences happen again and again

- theory debunked because of lack of scientific support and cross-cultural perspective

B. Self-Determination Theory - there are three inborn and universal needs that
help people gain a complete sense of self and whole, healthy relationships with
others (Richard Ryan and Edward Deci)

1. Autonomy - need to bee in control of one’s own behavior and goals (i.e. self-
determination)

2. Competence - need to be able to master challenging tasks of one’s life

3. Relatedness - need to feel a sense of belonging, intimacy, and security in

relationships with others

- They believe that satisfying these needs can be best accomplished if the person has
a supportive environment in which to develop goals and relationships with others

Physiological Components of Hunger

Hormonal Influences

- Insulin and glucagon are hormones that are secreted by the pancreas to control the
levels of fats, proteins, and carbs in the whole body, including glucose (blood sugar)

- Insulin reduces the level of glucose in the bloodstream

- Glucagon increases the level of glucose in the bloodstream

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- Leptin signals the hypothalamus that the body has had enough food, reducing
appetite and increasing the feeling of being full

The Roles of the Hypothalamus

- The ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) may be involved in stopping the eating
response when glucose levels go up

- lateral hypo- thalamus (LH), seems to influence the onset of eating when insulin
levels go up

- weight set point - particular level of weight that the body tries to maintain

- Metabolism - speed at which the body burns available energy

- Basal metabolic rate - rate at which a body burn energy when a person is resting

Obesity - 20 percent of more over the ideal body weight

- can be hereditary or caused by developed countries with stable food supply

Emotion

Emotion - the “feeling” aspect of consciousness, characterised by three elements:

1. physical arousal

2. certain behavior that reveals the feeling to the outside world

3. inner awareness of the feeling

The Physiology of Emotion

- When a person experiences an emotion, an arousal is created by the sympathetic

nervous system (e.g. heart rate increases, breathing becomes rapid, etc.)

- Different emotions are associated with different physiological reactions

- Amygdala is associated with emotions such as fear and pleasure in both humans
and animals

- When we are exposed to an emotion-provoking stimulus (such as a shark), the

neural signals travel by two pathways to the amygdala. The “low road” is the
pathway underneath the cortex and is a faster, simpler path, allowing for quick
responses to the stimulus, sometimes before we are consciously aware of the

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nature of the stimulus. The “high road” uses cortical pathways and is slower and
more complex, but it allows us to recognize the threat and, when needed, take
more conscious control of our emotional responses. In this particular example, the
low road shouts, “Danger!” and we react before the high road says, “It’s a shark!”

- Researchers have found that positive emotions are associated with the left frontal
lobe of the brain whereas negative feelings such as sadness, anxiety, and
depression seem to be a function of the right frontal lobe 


Facial Expression

- vary across cultures although some aspects seem to be universal

- research has found that different cultures can consistently recognise at least 7 facial
expressions: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, surprise, sadness, and contempt

- Display rules that can vary from culture to culture are learned ways of controlling
displays of emotion in social settings

Labeling Emotion

- Cognitive element: The third element of emotion is interpreting the subjective

feeling by giving it a label: anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, shame, interest,
and so on.

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- Because the labeling process is a matter of retrieving memories of previous similar
experiences, perceiving the context of the emotion, and coming up with a solution—
a label.

- influenced by language and culture

Theories of Emotion (TOM)

A. Common Sense TOM

- A stimulus (snarling dog) leads to an emotion of fear, which then leads to bodily
arousal (in this case, indicated by shaking) through the autonomic nervous system
(ANS).

- I’m shaking because I’m afraid

B. James-Lange TOM

- A stimulus leads to bodily arousal first, which is then interpreted as an emotion.

- I’m afraid because I’m shaking

C. Cannon-Bard TOM

- A stimulus leads to activity in the brain, which then sends signals to arouse the
body and interpret the emotion at the same time

- I’m shaking and feeling afraid at the same time

D. Schachter-Singer and Cognitive Arousal TOM

- proposed that two things have to happen before emotion occurs: the physical
arousal and a labeling of the arousal based on cues from the surrounding
environment

- These two things happen at the same time, resulting in the labeling of the emotion

- This dog is dangerous and scary and that makes me feel afraid or I am aroused in
the presence of a scary dog; therefore, I must be afraid

E. Facial Feedback TOM

- a stimulus such as this snarling dog causes fear arousal and a facial expression.
The facial expression then provides feedback to the brain about the emotion. The
brain then interprets the emotion and may also intensify it.

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- The facial feedback hypothesis assumes that changing your own facial expression
can change the way you feel. Smiling makes people feel happy, and frowning
makes people feel sad.

F. Lazarus and the Cognitive-Mediational Theory

- To mediate means to “come between” and in this theory the cognitive appraisal
mediates by coming between the stimulus and the emotional response to that
stimulus.

- it’s the interpretation of the arousal that results in the emotion of fear

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